


and you're not on your own

by Hannah (hannahoftheinternet)



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bombs, Explosions, Gen, M/M, POV Neil Josten, POV Third Person, Present Tense, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, and his relationships with the foxes as a whole, but it became more about andreil oops, the foxes are ride or die for neil, this was supposed to be focused on neil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25297165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahoftheinternet/pseuds/Hannah
Summary: Neil sits bolt upright in his bed, his heart pounding in his ears, bile and a shriek of horror rising in his throat. He turns off his alarm, which is playing that same song, and stares at his scarred hands.It wasn’t a dream.Or: Neil is caught in a time loop where the Foxhole Court explodes, over and over again.
Relationships: Neil Josten & The Foxes (All For The Game), Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 10
Kudos: 87





	and you're not on your own

**Author's Note:**

> this fic deals with HEAVY stuff. please, please mind the major character death tag. neil and all the other foxes all die in an explosion multiple times, and there's one section with implied suicide (none of this is graphic). i've put asterisks around that section, so you can skip it if you need to. i'll describe what happens in that section in the end notes.
> 
> [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICWiaZvB_IY) is the song that plays at the beginning of each loop, if you're interested.
> 
> title from 2 unlimited's "twilight zone"

Neil is no stranger to waking up in a panic, but this is different. More tangible. He can still feel the explosion rocking his bones, the blast singeing his hair. There’s a scream caught halfway up his throat, strangled only by that ingrained urge of _don’t make a sound._ He flails wildly and turns off his alarm, which is currently playing a very loud song by 2 Unlimited. Andrew, across the room, mutters irritably in his sleep and rolls over.

Neil lets out a breath, as measured as he possibly can, and presses his hands over his face. The scrape of his scars against his palms is at least slightly reassuring, proof that he’s still alive.

It had seemed so real, unlike one of his usual dreams that faded away as soon as his eyes were open. The deafening noise and blinding light of a bomb going off were like something he had lived, rather than conjured from his imagination.

He scrubs sleep out of his eyes, blinking the bleariness away. He throws the covers back and gets up, stretches, his spine popping as he twists, and slips out of the bedroom without waking Andrew. The bathroom door is open, and he’s struck by _déjà vu_. They tend to leave the door closed. So why is it open exactly the way it was in his dream?

Neil avoids his reflection, as always, keeping his attention focused on the bathroom window as he pees and washes his hands. The window is open too, letting in a breeze. He stares at it for a minute, and then shrugs, thinking that Andrew or Kevin probably left it open last night.

The whole dorm is cold because of that one open window, so he shuts it and pads into the kitchenette for some breakfast. There’s an unopened box of peanut butter-flavored Chex on the counter, which sounds simultaneously horrible and intriguing. Neil gets out a bowl, some milk, and a spoon, and fixes himself some cereal. It’s disgusting, but he eats it anyway, and then gets a banana before his run.

It’s past time for practice as he’s nearing the end of his route, so he doesn’t even bother going back to Fox Tower, just slows to a jog on the way to the Foxhole Court. All the other boys are there before him, but Andrew and Aaron catch his attention first, because they’re bickering loudly. Everyone else is studiously ignoring them.

“No,” Aaron spits, “I never said he was--” He doesn’t finish his sentence when he spots Neil, but the air in the locker room is stormy and dark, the tension hanging like thunderclouds over them. He tosses a scathing glance in Neil’s direction and stalks off. His locker opens, and then slams, unnecessarily loud.

“Trouble?” Neil asks, tugging his own shirt and shorts out of his locker. Andrew is wearing his hair pulled back with a fox orange bandana, the same way that Neil does. It’s a good look on him, a look that threatens to punch Neil in the heart. And there’s that feeling of _déjà vu_ again, as if he’s seen Andrew like this before, although he’s sure he would have noticed.

“Ask me no questions,” returns Andrew, pleasantly enough, but the look in his eyes is as near to murder as Neil has ever seen where Aaron is concerned. Normally, Neil would press, because he’s so sure that they were talking about him, but Andrew’s grip on his racquet is a bit menacing, so he drops it and heads to a stall to change.

When he’s done, only Nicky is left, relacing his sneakers. “What’s their deal?” Neil asks him.

His voice low but his tone arch, Nicky says, “They had some kind of tiff about you.”

Neil heaves a sigh. “Seriously? I thought punching Aaron fixed that problem.”

“Poor Neil Josten,” says Nicky, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “He thinks punching people solves problems instead of causing them.” Neil whacks him lightly in the gut with his racquet, and Nicky laughs all the way to the court.

The championship having been won, and there being no more games in the season left to play, the Foxes aren’t working as hard as usual, but it’s definitely still work. Neil leaves morning practice aching, but not unpleasantly so. The dull burn of his muscles is good, very familiar and grounding, a weird sort of balm against all his other healing injuries.

He steps into the shower after most everyone has gone. Andrew lingers, giving him significant looks that make him smile. Half of the lights are turned off, because Dan and Wymack apparently think that the team uses too much electricity. Most of them call bullshit on that one, but there’s a sign taped to the door of each locker room that reads: DON’T FORGET TO TURN OUT THE LIGHTS WHEN YOU LEAVE :). He knows that Andrew privately enjoys flicking the lights on and off every time he crosses the threshold, although he does it with his usual deadpan expression.

But it’s bright enough, and the colors familiar enough, that Neil isn’t freaking out. His mind knows that he’s safe on Fox territory, with Andrew waiting for him.

“I’m waiting for you,” Andrew shouts, as if reading his mind. “Hurry up!” He has a point; Neil has been standing under the warm spray for a while. He scrubs quickly, changes quickly, and is about to leave quickly when Andrew pushes him against a wall, kissing him hard and messy, and Neil forgets everything he was planning to do.

It’s Saturday, so they can pretty much take as long as they want, but Neil doesn’t like the idea of both of them turning back up at Fox Tower with swollen lips, even if they are _official_ now. He explains this to Andrew, who rolls his eyes but agrees to hang out on the court with him. This, predictably, leads to more kissing. Neil has never considered it before, but he’s pretty sure he could spend all day kissing Andrew.

Andrew is currently lying in the middle of the Exy court, catching his breath, and Neil rolls over to look at him. He’s still wearing that bandana, and since he has recent permission to touch Andrew’s hair, he reaches out and strokes the fabric. “This looks good on you.”

“Shut up,” Andrew says, eyeing him with a look that’s almost fond. Neil smiles and kisses him again, sweet.

Eventually they have to get up, and Andrew heads back to Fox Tower for a cigarette while Neil strikes out in search of food. His dorm has been slowly running out of food, because he has no idea what to buy and none of the other Foxes are willing to help him. There’s a sandwich shop near the Foxhole Court, so he buys a BLT and settles at one of its outdoor tables. The weather is nice, the sky cloudless, and there are students hanging out on the greenest patches of lawn. Palmetto State is… not great about its lawn upkeep.

The sandwich is good but not great, and he wonders at the idea that, after years of eating whatever he possibly could without caring about the taste, he’s now normal enough to judge flavors. It’s kind of a weird realization, but kind of cool too. Another step towards leaving his old life behind. Maybe he’ll have a favorite food soon.

A one man band crosses the green, the drum fixed to his back thumping and his cymbals crashing. A pair of girls with sodas, sitting at a nearby table, giggle and point. Neil watches as the guy plays a jaunty tune with his accordion, trying to dance along, but the oversize drum is unbalancing him and he falls over with a mighty crash. And then, again, _déjà vu._ Three times in one day.

Neil decides not to think about it.

He goes back to Fox Tower after lunch, watches some Bill Murray movie with Matt. Kevin is there with them, pretending not to care, but Neil can tell that he’s interested. In the last few minutes of the movie, he puts aside his laptop to watch, but he doesn’t say much. It’s strange to see Kevin interested in something that is decidedly not Exy. Like watching a dog walk on its hind legs. Odd, rarely seen, but not impossible. Winning championships must have done something to him.

When the movie is over, Neil goes to the roof, not really caring who sees him this time. Andrew isn’t there, so he only lingers for a few moments. The air smells like smoke and he smiles faintly, savoring the clue that although Andrew is no longer there, he recently was. There’s something surprisingly intimate about standing in the same place he knows that Andrew stood maybe half an hour earlier.

He heads back to his room to study for finals, but the huge piles of paper for English and Spanish are too much to face on a nice day like this, when everything has been going his way. He has his Spanish textbook spread out on the desk in front of him, but he has no delusions that he’s actually going to read it, and continues the habit of drawing fox paws in the margins of his notebook instead. He’s getting really good at drawing fox paws.

His alarm clock plays another cheerful tune midway through a paw print, letting him know that it’s time for afternoon practice. Neil grins, stretches his shoulders, and heads out. He can’t find it in him to be annoyed, resentful, or even mildly put out about having to go to practice.

Wymack is apparently going to be late, and no one has seen Andrew since he left Fox Tower at two, but the rest of the team is all lined up, and Dan sets them up with laps and suicide drills, plenty to keep them busy. Neil lets his mind wander as he runs, exploring all the places that Andrew could possibly be. He tamps down on that anxiety quick, and slows his run so that he can share a few words with Renee.

Andrew shows up around halfway through practice, his arms folded and his posture tense. If he were in a cartoon, there’d be storm clouds hovering over his head, signalling everyone to stay out of the way of his bad mood. As it is, the visual cues they get are enough.

“Nice to see you, Andrew,” Dan calls. “We’re running scrimmages, so why don’t you pick a goal and set up?”

Instead of answering, Andrew swings his racquet with deadly force and smashes it into the plexiglass wall hard enough to make it buckle.

And this day has been mostly normal with its vague hints of weird, but this is when Neil actually realizes that something is wrong. This whole day, right down to the bandanas, is straight from his dream. Which means the next part is…

“Stop!” he all but screams. “Everyone get off the court now!”

“Neil,” Renee starts to say, “what--” But she never finishes her sentence, because the Foxhole Court explodes.

* * *

Neil sits bolt upright in his bed, his heart pounding in his ears, bile and a shriek of horror rising in his throat. He turns off his alarm, which is playing that same song, and stares at his scarred hands.

_It wasn’t a dream._

He understands now, can trust his mind enough to know that this is not his imagination. He can still smell fire. Hear the explosion ringing. He scrubs his hands over his face, roughly pushing away the bleariness of sleep. By his count, it’s the third day. Third cycle. Third loop. Whatever he wants to call it, it’s the third. He throws himself out of bed and heads to the bathroom. Sure enough, the door and the window are both open.

If he closes them, he could be inviting the same outcome of the previous days. Cycles. He needs a name for this.

He leaves the window open.

There’s that same box of cereal on the counter, unopened, its beige cardboard mocking him. He remembers how vile it tasted, wrinkles his nose, and tosses it in the garbage can. Andrew is probably going to go off on him for throwing away his purchase, but Neil can weather that.

He very briefly considers waking Andrew, bringing him into this, seeing if they can solve this problem together, but he decides against it. He may be, as almost all of the Foxes have told him at some point or another, very good at causing problems, but he likes to think he’s fairly good at solving them too.

Forgoing the morning run, he jogs straight to the Foxhole Court, punches in the new code, and shoves open the door. He strides down the hallway to the lounge, turns a corner, and slams directly into Kevin. They both groan in pain, reeling away from each other.

“Christ, Neil,” says Kevin. “Why is your head so hard?”

“Protect me from concussions and the odd overconfident Exy queen,” Neil returns, smirking as Kevin scowls at him. “Before you ask what I’m doing here, I’m…” He thinks about what to say, and decides on a cryptic “investigating.”

“Investigating what?” Kevin asks stubbornly, because he has no idea how to take a hint.

“Mind your business.” Neil tries to sweep past him into the darkened locker room, but Kevin grabs his arm.

“Hey,” he says. “If there’s a problem, I need to know about it.”

Neil avoids going down _that_ road with him, and instead fires back, “You don’t trust me?”

Sighing through his nose, Kevin releases him and says, “Fine. But if I come back and you’ve blown up the Court or something…” He lets the threat hang and departs, but Neil is stuck, frozen, looping his words in his mind over and over: _blow up the Court. Blow up the Court. Blow up the Court._

How did he know?

 _What_ does he know?

He doesn’t have time for this. He needs to figure out what’s happening _now_. He searches the Court top to bottom, meticulous, throwing open every door to see what’s behind it, needing to know where it is. Where this bomb is.

It’s nowhere. He knows the Foxhole Court like the back of his hand by now, but he _can’t find it._ He’s checked every janitor’s closet, every nook and cranny, even broke into the women’s locker room to check all the lockers. But there’s nothing. Wherever this bomb is, it’s well-hidden. If it’s here at all.

Practice is starting soon, but he can’t focus. His mind is replaying the explosion, over and over. The sound. The smoke. The surge of light. It’s all he can think of.

The day passes in a blur, his head stuffed full with the death of the Foxes. What can he do? How can he stop this? He’s distracted all day, only ever thinking about Kevin and Andrew and the Foxes and the _explosion_. At practice that night, in the back of his mind, he notices that Kevin is missing from the court. That’s new. That didn’t happen the last two times. He stumbles over his feet after missing an easy pass, and Nicky calls down the court, “Neil, bud, you good?”

“I’m fine,” he calls back automatically, and distantly hears Allison chirp something about being owed fifteen dollars. Almost all the noise is drowned out by the repeating sound of a bomb detonating.

There’s a sudden moment of clarity, a moment when everything is briefly sharp and in focus, and then he hears the bomb go off for real, and his vision goes white.

* * *

Neil sits up with a gasp, his hand flying out of its own accord and slapping his alarm clock, but the song keeps playing even as he struggles with it. A pillow flies at him, and he looks across the room to see Andrew frowning at him. “Turn it off or get stabbed,” he says, his voice a bit scratchy with sleep, so Neil turns his full attention on the clock and turns the alarm off. Andrew rolls over, clearly ready to get another forty-five minutes of sleep.

“Andrew,” Neil says, trying not to let his voice sound desperate. Andrew rolls over again and gives him an expectant look. “Never mind. Go back to bed.”

“Idiot,” says Andrew, but he yawns as he says it, and that kind of negates whatever heat had been in the word.

Neil goes into the bathroom. He closes the window. He goes out of the bathroom. He eats his cereal, which is still horrible. He goes on his jog. He walks into the middle of an argument in the locker room. He does all he possibly can to keep this day the same as the first two, with one key difference.

After his sandwich, after watching the one man band fall over, he goes back to the Foxhole Court and does his search again, scouring the Court from top to bottom. He practically has every single inch of it memorized by the time he’s done, and there’s still no bomb.

He knows what’s going to happen, knows with absolute certainty: As soon as Andrew comes to practice late and smashes his racquet into the plexiglass, the bomb goes off. He has an idea: get Andrew to come to practice. Or get Andrew to stay away from practice. Whatever. Of course, it would be easier if he could find him. He pulls out his phone and calls him. No answer. Next he calls Kevin, and then he calls Nicky, and then he calls Aaron, but none of them have seen Andrew since he left Fox Tower at noon.

He has a number of ideas about where to look, but his first thought is apparently the best one: Andrew is in the driver’s seat of the Maserati, methodically consuming a party-size bag of peanut M&Ms and listening to extremely bad electronica. Neil knocks on the passenger side window, and Andrew unlocks the door without comment. The first thing Neil does as he gets into the car is turn off the radio. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Andrew mimics. He’s in a particularly pissy mood, Neil realizes, both by his tone and the way he’s avoiding the orange M&Ms. He only does that when he’s mad at one of the Foxes, and Neil can reasonably deduce that this time, it’s Aaron. “You want something.”

“Come to practice with me tonight,” Neil says before he can stop himself. “On time.”

Andrew turns on him with a slightly softer version of his trademark death glare. “Give me one good reason why I should.”

“I want you to,” says Neil. “And I’ll make out with you afterwards.” _If there is an afterwards._

“You’ll make out with me anyway,” Andrew says, and that’s true, but Neil tactfully doesn’t mention that. “Fine. I’ll go.”

Neil congratulates himself on a job well done, and then Andrew leans across the center console, mutters a quick “Yes or no?” and slips his tongue into Neil’s mouth at Neil’s cheerful acceptance.

The bomb goes off anyway, right in the middle of practice.

* * *

Neil is starting to get annoyed. Annoyed with that damn song that plays every time he wakes up, annoyed with that damn bomb that keeps ruining his practices, and most of all, annoyed with himself for not being able to stop it. He’s smart, he’s resourceful, but he’s not sure he can do this alone.

So Andrew needs to know.

Neil isn’t a huge fan of waking Andrew up, not after the near-fatal assault on his ribcage the first time he had tried it, but he goes back into the bedroom. Andrew is flat on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. He looks a little softer when he’s asleep, Neil thinks. A little more at peace. “Andrew,” he stage-whispers. Andrew doesn’t stir. “Andrew!”

Nothing.

Neil turns the volume on his radio down just slightly, tunes into his wake-up station, and lets the music play. It does the trick; Andrew surges up, his hands balled into fists like he’s ready to punch someone. There being no one else in the room, that someone is Neil. He takes a step back, and Andrew gives him a very unimpressed look. “Oh,” he says. “It’s you.”

“Yeah, good morning to you too,” Neil says, equally unimpressed.

Andrew looks at the clock on his own bedside table and curses. “It’s five in the morning. I’ll take an explanation.”

“How about ‘I think we’re all going to die this evening’?” offers Neil.

Frowning, Andrew scoots up the bed slightly, a clear invitation. A little touched, Neil sits down next to him. “Explain.”

“It’s going to sound crazy--”

“I don’t care. Tell me.”

So Neil tells him.

When he’s done, he takes a deep breath, his lungs crying out after having spilled everything with almost no time for breath, and waits for the reaction. Andrew’s brow is deeply furrowed; Neil can practically see the gears turning in his head. It takes Andrew a full four minutes to speak up. “I believe you.”

Neil sighs in relief.

“But,” Andrew continues, “I don’t know how to help you. It seems like there’s no way out of this.”

Rubbing his temples, Neil says, “I know it sounds insane.”

“Neil.” Andrew’s voice brooks no argument. “Your life has been nothing but one insane moment after another.” He doesn’t elaborate, but Neil knows what he’s saying: _this might as well happen._ It’s almost funny, now that he thinks about it. Andrew is right--it’s barely even weird, considering all the other things that have happened to him. “Are you going to do anything about this?”

“I was hoping you’d have an idea,” Neil confesses. “I feel like I’ve tried everything.”

Andrew rubs his chin with his thumb. “Telling me might even be the turning point, the event that allows time to continue as normal. You never know.” Neil opens his mouth to speak, but Andrew places his hand over his lips, silencing him. “I’m thinking.” He thinks for a few minutes, and Neil bites at his palm gently, making him draw it away. Finally, he says, “What do you think would happen if you skip practice today?”

“What?”

“Simple enough question.”

“Well,” he says slowly, “I wouldn’t be on the court when the bomb goes off. Maybe that’s it; maybe that’s the catalyst. If I’m not on the court, maybe it won’t explode.”

Nodding, Andrew says, “Don’t go to practice.”

It’s harder than it sounds; he craves the adrenaline and the rhythm of Exy. It’s the easiest and most enjoyable way to put anxiety out of his mind. “Feel like giving me a better alternative?” says Neil with a suggestive flick of his eyebrows, and Andrew’s expression shifts before he leans in and captures Neil’s mouth in a kiss.

The rest of Neil’s day progresses basically as normal: peanut butter cereal, morning practice, that clumsy one man band, but instead of going to afternoon practice with everyone else, he lingers outside Fox Tower, watching as Andrew pulls up in the Maserati. The engine idles as he rolls down the window, looking at Neil over the sunglasses perched low on his nose. “I’m not giving you a written invitation.” Despite the smile that flickers across Neil’s face as he gets in the passenger seat, there’s a low coil of anxiety in his gut that supersedes the happiness he gains from being in the car with Andrew, just the two of them. “Where to?”

“I don’t care,” Neil says. “Just drive.” So Andrew releases the parking brake and he drives.

They end up parked on a ridge overlooking a strip mall, watching the sun go down and listening to rock music on the radio, turned down low. They don’t chat, really; Neil doesn’t like small talk and Andrew just prefers silence, so they swap a few words occasionally. As the sun dips below the horizon, Neil says, “I’m scared.” The words hurt him coming up. If he weren’t intimately familiar with the sensation of being burned, he might describe it as such. It’s more like bringing up stomach acid, chafing his throat raw. “I want to run.”

“It would not change anything.”

“It might.”

“How do you know?” And Neil doesn’t have an answer for that, so he leans against the window. He’s not expecting comfort, and he doesn’t get it, except in the weird, sideways way that Andrew’s presence comforts him. After another few minutes, Andrew wordlessly starts the car and backs up, taking them back out onto the road.

***

It’s the flashing of emergency lights that clues him in, bright against the deep darkness of the South Carolina night. Andrew pulls up outside the Foxhole Court which is--flaming. Burning. Neil puts a hand to his mouth and swallows around the bile rising in his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees that Andrew is still as stone, completely unmoving. His chest doesn’t rise.

Everything is a blur after that. The voice of the fire marshall washes over him, snatches of words coming up disjointed in his mind.

_\--no survivors found--searching for threats--you can’t go in--_

He doesn’t know how he ends up on the roof, but he does, Andrew beside him. Cigarette butts sit all around them; an abandoned pack drops off the edge at some point. Neil is shaking, even though it’s not cold. Smoke hangs around them, heavy and choking.

He imagines this is something what the Foxhole Court smells like at this moment.

“Andrew,” he says, but he can’t say anything else. Andrew is gone, unreachable. Numb. Both of them. Nothing but shaking and the scent of smoke.

Dan, Kevin, Matt, Aaron, Allison, Nicky, Renee… All gone. Forever.

Unless…

“Andrew,” he says again. “I can fix this.” It’s a terrible idea, a horrible idea, and if he fails, he’ll be leaving Andrew alone, with _no one._ “I think I can make this right.”

Silence.

“If I jump.” There. It’s out in the open. He’s said it, out loud, and now he’s waiting for an answer he’s not going to get. “I think… If I jump, if I--” He can’t finish. Can’t make himself say that part of it. “It’ll reset. I’ll wake up this morning, and I’ll have another chance. They’ll be… back. Alive. And you won’t remember.”

A cigarette grinds against the concrete. “What did I tell you about the martyr card?” Andrew’s voice is raw, flat. Aside from the flick of his lighter, the deep rise of his chest as he pulls smoke into his lungs, the harsh press of his cigarettes into oblivion, he’s motionless.

“If I’m right, this fixes everything.”

“And if you’re wrong, Neil? What then?” Neil doesn’t have an answer to that, but Andrew doesn’t give him time to come up with one. “If you jump, I jump.”

The words put a visceral knife in Neil’s chest, twisting. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t ask me anything.” Finality in his voice and the set of his shoulders. “You gave your back to me. I am just keeping my promise.”

Neil can sense the trust in the statement. They have lost everything tonight--the only remaining parts of their family. And Andrew is still willing to take the leap of faith.

In all the movies Neil has seen, the lovers leaping off the roof to their deaths hold hands. But he doesn’t live in a movie.

***

* * *

When he wakes, there’s a lump in his throat as he remembers the jut of Andrew’s chin as he promised Neil company in his effort to make it right. The grief of losing the Foxes is still raw inside his chest. When he looks over at Andrew, though, some of the pain eases. That song is playing on the radio again, and for once, he’s glad to hear it. He did it. He reset the loop. He has another chance.

He wakes Andrew again, tells his story again, but this time, instead of saying _I believe you, but I don’t know how to help you_ , he says, “I believe you, but I am not sure the rest of them will.”

Rubbing his temples, Neil groans, “I know. I have no idea how I’m going to deal with this.”

Andrew has his phone out, his fingers tapping over the keyboard. “Just tell them. I’ll back you up.”

The admission of trust, the promise that Andrew believes him without question, will support him unconditionally, is… a lot, especially after the day Neil is having (again and again and again). “What are you doing?” As he’s speaking, his own phone chirps with a text to the Foxes’ group chat.

**Andrew, 5:07 AM**

_Room 317. Ten minutes._

Neil looks up from the screen. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” No room for argument there. “Fix it.”

Ten minutes later, all the Foxes are gathered in the living area of his dorm room, sitting on the sofa and the floor. Nicky is perched on the counter in the kitchenette. Kevin has Wymack on speaker, because their coach is, for some reason, not there. They’re all looking at him. “Uh,” he says, not sure how to start.

Luckily, Andrew takes over for him. “Neil has been living the same day over and over,” he says flatly, and from there, it’s easy enough for Neil to recount the story again. He finds himself reusing the same words from his explanation to Andrew, now that he knows how to narrate it in a way that makes sense.

When he’s done, there’s dead silence. Everyone is looking at him, their expressions ranging from concern to confusion to boredom. Predictably, Nicky is the one to speak first. “Someone call Bee,” he titters anxiously. “I think Neil’s having a nervous breakdown.”

“It’s been a long time coming,” Aaron deadpans.

“Shut it,” says Dan, holding up her hand. The Foxes obediently drop into silence. “Neil, are you sure this isn’t just… PTSD? Some kind of hallucination?”

“You trust me, right?”

There’s no hesitation as Dan and Matt and _Kevin_ all say, “Yes” at the same time. There’s a little spark within him as the admission that no matter how insane he sounds, there are people behind him, people who trust him and believe him.

Allison casts a glance over at Renee. “Any opinions on this?”

She smiles serenely. “Anything is possible.” But her hand goes to the cross around her neck, and there’s a small line between her eyebrows.

“Neil,” Dan says, calling his attention back to her. “I believe you, but I need to know what this means. How do we deal with this?”

In his narration, he had left out the part about leaving, about coming back to all of them dead. He’s not willing to mention it now. He can’t put that burden on any of them. He’s keeping that inside himself, for as long as it takes for it to be over. “I think,” he says, slowly, giving voice for the first time to the theory that’s been brewing in his mind. “I think that someone plants the bomb during afternoon practice. It always goes off at 5:30, right in the middle of practice. I’ve searched it, and I can’t find anything, so I think it’s planted while we’re all on the court.”

The meeting dissolves after that: Wymack hangs up to call Abby, Dan calls the head of campus security, and someone hands Neil a phone and tells him to call the police. He’s not about to tell the cops that he’s been living the same day over and over again, so he tells them only that he got a tip on a bomb going to be set in the Foxhole Court, and could they come right away with the bomb disposal squadron to keep an eye on the building?

Then all he can do is wait.

They’re all exempt from practice, Wymack tells them over the phone. “No one is allowed to have an anxiety attack. And for God’s sake, don’t go anywhere near the court.”

The first thing Neil does is go out to the court, with Kevin in tow. There’s already a fleet of emergency vehicles in the parking lot. Men and women in police gear stand around the building, guns clearly visible. Neil hates cops, so seeing them protect his beloved court is… weird. A policewoman with a walkie talkie approaches them. “I’m sorry, but you guys can’t be here. We’re setting up a lockdown. No one is allowed until we’re sure the threat has passed.”

Neil and Kevin both fix her with identical _looks,_ but even Neil’s scars and the frankly scary lines of Kevin’s eyebrows and cheekbones aren’t enough to deter her. She shoos them away.

Back at Fox Tower, the atmosphere is tense. All the Foxes have gone back to their own rooms, but Nicky is opening and slamming the cupboards repetitively and Andrew is nowhere to be seen. Kevin grumbles and puts on his headphones, so Neil goes up to the roof.

The last time he was there, he jumped to his death. Being there again gives him vertigo, but the sight of Andrew, sitting at the ledge, relaxes him. This, at least, is normal. He sits down, the end of his life in the last loop welling up inside him again. He can’t speak the words. He will, one day, when he’s ready, but he can’t burden Andrew with this knowledge yet.

It’s silent for a while. Andrew smokes and Neil watches the campus, and it’s comforting. Familiar. No matter what happens, he has this. But then Andrew puts out his cigarette and leans in, and Neil has to say, "Stop.” He shudders, suddenly cold. His mother once told him that this feeling meant someone was walking over his grave. He’s always hated that expression. Hated the idea of having a grave at all. Andrew doesn’t ask why, of course he doesn’t, but Neil feels like he owes some explanation. “Later.”

A nod. That’s all he needs.

Hours pass on the roof. Eventually, they talk a little bit. Neil shares pieces of the narrative that he had left out: the peanut butter cereal, the open window, all the pieces that had clued him in. “I threw it away in one of the loops,” he says. “It was vile.”

Andrew looks as close to amused as is possible for him. “Your opinion is not universal.”

He realizes then that Andrew likes peanut butter. It’s a funny thing to realize when your life hangs in the balance, when you don’t know how this day is going to play out. He resolves that when this is over--if it’s ever over--he’s going to buy peanut butter ice cream for Andrew. As proof that they survived.

At half past five, Andrew’s phone rings. He answers, listens, and hangs up, all without saying a single word. Neil’s breath catches in his chest. “News?”

“They caught her. It’s over.”

The girl sitting in police custody is about nineteen, with ginger curls and milk-white skin. She glares defiantly at everyone who approaches her, but starts cursing violently when she spots the Foxes filing into the station. “Fuck you guys! Fuck all of you! It’s your fucking fault the Ravens lost, and Riko is dead! I fucking hate you guys! You fuckers should all be dead!”

“Sports fanatic,” says one of the cops, shaking his head in disgust. “Some sore loser Ravens fan who wanted to blow you guys up as revenge for costing them the championship. Talk about disproportionate retribution.”

The Ravens. Even with Riko dead, his team is still haunting them.

By some unspoken rule, they still all avoid the court. The air that’s fallen over the team is dark, disturbed. Kevin curls up on the couch in the dorm, a bottle of vodka in his hand, his eyes glazed over. Before long, he’s asleep, a steady stream of alcohol pouring out of the bottle and onto the sofa cushions. Neil grabs it and sets it on the counter.

Renee stops by his room as it starts to get darker, the night settling more deeply around them. Neil is uneasy, restless. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to sleep. “So,” Renee says, sitting at the table across from him, “do you think the problem is solved?”

“I hope so.” That’s all he can think to say.

“Of course.” She regards him, her gaze neutral but somehow still intense. “Why do you think you got trapped in the loop?”

He doesn’t have a good answer for that. “I’m good at accepting my inevitable death.” It should be a joke, but they both know it’s not.

“Only inevitable when you’re alone,” corrects Renee gently. “When you told us what you were going through, we helped you.” It’s not just the loop she’s talking about, and he understands that. “Whatever was making you relive this day over and over, I think it wanted you to ask for help.”

Neil doesn’t say anything else, can’t, but she gets it. When she leaves, she tells him to get some sleep.

It’s hard. He keeps tossing and turning, unable to bear the thought that he’ll wake up the next day with that same song playing, with the same day dawning. Fear gnaws at him, hungry, trying to steal away his sanity. Finally, Andrew says from the other bed, “Stop moving. You’re keeping me awake,” and that, of course, is what allows Neil to drop into oblivion.

* * *

The song playing on the radio when he wakes up isn’t one he knows.

**Author's Note:**

> in the section with asterisks: neil and andrew go back to find out that the court exploded while they were gone, killing all the foxes except them. neil decides that he's going to jump off a roof to kill himself and make the loop reset, and andrew jumps with him.
> 
> as always, if you enjoyed, please leave a comment! after all, comments are a writer's best friend.


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